


We Might As Well Enjoy It

by TheObsessedAuthor



Series: Prompt Fills [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Fluffapalooza, Kid!Lock, SERIOUSLY THAT'S ALL IT IS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:21:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheObsessedAuthor/pseuds/TheObsessedAuthor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock go to the beach. That's all it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Might As Well Enjoy It

**Author's Note:**

> For Sue, based on this prompt: "Sherlock rolled over onto his front, shuffled his hips to make a depression in the sand and huffed into his folded arms.  
> 'You looked like a whale when you did that.'  
> 'What?'  
> 'A whale. Or maybe a dolphin?'  
> 'Better. Mycroft's the whale.'  
> 'What am I?'  
> Sherlock opened one eye and looked at the boy next to him. Sandy hair. Dark blue eyes. Golden skin caked with rapidly-drying sand.  
> Sherlock grinned. 'A biscuit.'"

     The sun was beating down with such ferocity John feared Sherlock's pale skin would curl and crisp, but so far the half-inch of SPF 70 sunscreen John's mother had applied before they'd left the house had been enough to keep him from burning. He stumbled slightly under the weight of the unnecessarily heavy picnic basket Sherlock's mother had packed, cursing his too-big shoes.

     "It's not unnecessary."

     John blinked up at Sherlock through the bright sunlight. "What?"

     "The lunch basket. It's exactly as large as it needs to be."

     John raised one eyebrow and shifted the wicker basket so the weight rested on one hip. "Why does it need to be this big?" A thought occurred to him. "And how did you know I was thinking that, anyway?"

     "Easy," Sherlock said, lifting the basket away from the smaller boy and striding quickly away, eager to reach their destination. John jogged to keep up. "Your forehead creases when you're complaining about something, and the only thing you could possibly be unhappy about on a day like this would be the weight of the basket, and the fact that  _you_  had to carry it all the way to the beach..."

     John shook his head. "Brilliant," he announced.

     He couldn't quite see through the thick layer of sunscreen, but he was fairly certain Sherlock blushed. "That, and you tend to mutter aloud whatever you're thinking. You've been murmuring about sandwiches made of bricks since we left the yard."

     It was John's turn to blush. "Well, you don't even eat that much, and there's only the two of us, so I don't think we need we need a  _feast._ "

     "On the contrary, my dear Watson," Sherlock stated, slowing down enough for John to catch up fully. "My mother knows precisely how much we'll both eat, and beyond that, which foods we'd both enjoy. Since neither of us like-" he paused and sniffed the wicker, wrinkling his nose- " _sushi_ , I can assume she packed that particular item with somebody else in mind. Who would she send to watch us?"

     John frowned. "Well, Mycroft, I suppose. But she said she'd let us go alone today! We're old enough to go to the  _beach_  by ourselves!"

     Sherlock coughed conspicuously. "As I recall, there were certain, erm,  _requirements_  to our being allowed to go by ourselves." John stared at him, and he elaborated, "she said I could only go with you without supervision if I abstained from my experiments for a week."

     John scowled at him. "Couldn't they have waited seven days? Now we're going to have  _Mycroft_  breathing down our necks!" He shuddered theatrically.

     Sherlock pursed his lips. "I doubt he'll stay that close to us," he mused. "He's clearly been trying to be subtle about it so far, even though he is clearly STANDING BEHIND MRS. LEANA'S GARBAGE BIN!" He shook his head disdainfully as the older boy poked his head out from the bins in question, nearly half a block behind them. Sherlock snorted, then turned back to John. "And besides, some of those experiments involve  _living subjects._  I couldn't let them starve, could I?"

     "I suppose not," John agreed grudgingly.

     Sherlock nodded. "We're here," he proclaimed, dropping the basket into the sand.

     John frowned at him. "You'll get sand in the sandwiches," he growled, laying out his beach towel and relocating the basket on top of it.

     "Then they'll be more aptly named," Sherlock replied brusquely. He lifted one foot in disgust. "I'm  _already_  covered in it. This damned lotion isn't helping, either."

     John shrugged. "You could go swimming with me," he suggested, pulling off his shirt and leaving him wearing only his dark green swim trunks. "That would wash off the worst of the grit."

     "True," Sherlock admitted, "but it would also wash away the sunscreen, and then we wouldn't be able to stay for very long." He scowled at his paper-white arms as he peeled off his t-shirt.

     "You can go swimming if you want," offered Mycroft, appearing behind them. "Mummy packed the bottle of lotion in the basket as well, so it can be re-applied."

     "Great!" John grabbed Sherlock's wrist, ignoring the slide of the sunscreen, and dragged him down the beach. Mycroft sighed, settling himself on the spread-out blanket. 

     "This water is  _freezing,_ " Sherlock complained, gingerly dipping one foot into the foaming tide. "I'll go into shock in there."

John, who had thrown himself into the water with a running start, shook his head, sending tiny droplets through the air to land on Sherlock's skin. "It's not that bad, you just have to get used to it. And it only seems cold because it's so warm today." He squinted up at the cloud-spotted sky. "Which is weird, considering it's rained for the past two days."

     "What else do you expect from England?" Sherlock had inched his way further into the water, and now the tide lapped at his shins. "This is probably the only sunny day we'll get for the rest of the summer." Another few inches. "Might as well enjoy it, I suppose." Another inch. "Even if  _you_ think the best way to do that is to lose your extremities to the cold."

     John snorted and splashed the dramatic dark-haired boy, laughing at his shouts of outrage. "C'mon, you baby. Or I'll push you in!" He stood threateningly, reaching towards Sherlock, before the sand beneath his feet shifted and he lost his balance. He fell backwards and disappeared into the water, the waves swallowing him.

     "John!" Sherlock immediately dove in after him, ignoring the loss of feeling in his fingers. He swung his head around, locating the smaller blond boy, and pulled him to the surface, brushing his hair our of his eyes. "John? John, are you okay?"

     John coughed. "Of  _course_  i'm okay, nitwit," he said, rubbing his eyes. "I  _can_ swim, you know. I was just surprised by the drop-off." He gestured at the place where the water grew suddenly darker. Then he laughed. "I guess the water isn't  _that_  bad, is it? Or you would've let me drown."

     Sherlock scowled. "It's okay," he admitted. "But I would never let you drown, even if there were sharks and things."

     John tilted his head. "That was a joke, Sherlock," he said. "But i'm glad." He rubbed his arms together. "Should we look for fish?"

     "What would you do if you found them?" Sherlock patted his wild curls somewhat into place- water always made them more pronounced. "Would you eat them?"

     "Of course not," John snorted. "I would just look at them, that's all."

     "What for?" Sherlock returned to the shore and sat sullenly on the sand, sifting it through his pale fingers.

     "Because they're interesting," John said confidently, sitting beside Sherlock and pushing the sand up into a vague mountain shape. "I would rather look at fish than eat it, anyway. It smells weird."

     "Mycroft doesn't seem to mind," Sherlock murmured, peeking over his shoulders. John laughed as the older boy tried to subtly sneak a plastic-wrapped sushi roll out of the basket. 

     Sherlock scooted backwards up the shore until he reached the dry sand. John followed him, watching with interest. Sherlock rolled over onto his front, shuffled his hips to make a depression in the sand and huffed into his folded arms.

     "You looked like a whale when you did that."

     Sherlock slitted his eyes at John. "What?"

     "A whale." John stifled a laugh at the boy's indignant expression. "Or maybe a dolphin?"

     "Better," Sherlock allowed. "Mycroft's the whale."

     John smiled, laying on his stomach next to his dark-haired friend. "What am I?"

     Sherlock opened one eye and glanced at the boy next to him. Sandy hair. Dark blue eyes. Golden skin caked with rapidly drying sand. He grinned. "A biscuit."

     "What? Shove off," John yelped. "If i'm a biscuit, then you're a milk bottle."

     "Am not," Sherlock muttered into his arms. "I'm not  _that_  white."

     "Are too," John replied, poking his shoulder. "Actually, no, you're not. You're turning pink already."

     Sherlock scowled and pushed himself up onto his elbows. "I suppose we'll have to ask  _Mycroft_  for the lotion," he groaned, glaring at his reddening skin with something close to accusation. 

     "You're the one who couldn't leave off his experiments," John reminded him, already on his feet. "Besides, I'm getting hungry. We could eat now, and then make a sand castle or something."

     "Sand castles are for children," Sherlock grumbled, trying futilely to brush off his sand-covered body. "I am not a child."

     "We're both children." John ruffled his hair, shaking out the sand. "And I would rather be immature and well-fed than grown-up and hungry."

     "Fine," Sherlock conceded. They tromped up the beach, stopping when they reached their towel and the teenager upon it.

     Mycroft glanced up at them from the book he'd procured from who-knows-where. "Time to eat already?"

     "Like you haven't," Sherlock shot back, pulling the noticeably-less-heavy basket over to where he and John were now seated. He flipped the top off, addressing John. "What's your favorite type of sandwich?"

     "Turkey and cheese on whole wheat," John answered automatically. Sherlock handed him a carefully packaged item and continued digging through the massive basket.

     John unwrapped the sandwich and peeked between the bread slices before taking a bite. "I never mentioned that to your mother, did I?"

     "Of course not," Sherlock said, like it was obvious. He offered him a cold can of coke, which John accepted.

     John took another bite of his sandwich. "What did you get?"

     Sherlock opened a small box. "Roast beef panini with caramelized shallots." He peered at the sandwich accusingly, before taking an enormous mouthful. " _Without_ horseradish sauce, thank heavens," he said, his cheeks bulging.

     "Manners," Mycroft commented, turning the page of his book. Sherlock stuck out his tongue at his brother, giving him an eyeful of chewed panini. Mycroft frowned at him. "Keep it up, and you won't get the ice cream money Mummy sent with."

     "Ice cream?" John swallowed his coke. "Where?"

     "There's a stand down near the tables," Mycroft said, his eyes glued to his book. "Mummy said you two could go get something after you finished eating."

     John gulped down the remaining coke in his can, then watched impatiently as Sherlock picked through his panini, eventually leaving it half-eaten. Mycroft slapped the notes into John's hand without losing his place in his novel, and he and Sherlock raced each other down the shoreline to the tiny cart near the picnic tables.

After ordering their desserts- a double scoop of chocolate for Sherlock, a small banana split for John- they sat at one of the tables, enjoying the cold treat.

     "I'm glad we chose today to come here," John commented. "Tomorrow I bet it'll rain,  _again._ "

     "Probably," Sherlock agreed. 

     "It was fun, though," John sighed. He leaned his head against Sherlock's shoulder. "I hope we can do it again soon."

     Sherlock definitely did _not_ blush. It was the sunburn, surely.


End file.
